Toronto-born Dennis Hawkins, 53, wasn’t always a gardener, but he’s been doing it for thirteen years and it’s his passion now. Flowers and shrubs aren’t his thing though.  Instead his summers are spent, with a team of other people living with HIV, looking after a growing number of community garden plots in downtown Toronto, there to put fresh, healthy produce on the tables of people living with HIV. The food is donated to Toronto People with AIDS Foundation food bank, the Essentials Market, for distribution to the agency’s clients.

This year Dennis and his crew will be growing tomatoes, beans, peas, beets, cucumbers, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, chard and more.  They will also plant corn this year, hopefully to serve at the agency’s picnic in late summer. The team starts some of their plants on apartment window sills, for planting out in late May.  It’s all volunteer labour which Dennis says, provides a healthy way to get out in the fresh air, exercise and take pride in their collective achievements. Says Dennis   “it enables others to act and forget about their routine daily problems and empowers them to think positive”.  He says it certainly clears his mind!

Dennis’s own journey? After his HIV diagnosis in April 1998 he found his work in Toronto difficult and stressful to his health, so he decided to move to Wasaga Beach where most of his family resides today. Dennis lived in the Simcoe County area for 10 years. A formative event occurred in 2006 when he attended the International AIDS Conference, which that year was in Toronto, and where its theme “Time To Deliver” struck home. He immediately became involved with and volunteered for a local community Garden Project known as the Gift Of Life Garden which provided fresh organically-grown produce for people who lived below the poverty line, learning much from Gwen Crump, a former board member of AIDS Committee of Simcoe County and her niece Karen Young, a horticulturist.

He felt in 2010 it was time to move back to Toronto where he was born and raised. “Because I had so much fun in gardening and living out my passion, I continue to help others do it” he says. Now he presides over two gardens as Garden Team Leader for the PWA Essentials Market and also tends to his own community garden that he helped get started with the assistance of partners Coca Cola, Parks Canada, Participation, Bienstock Natural Playgrounds and Toronto Community Housing. Other locations are being scouted out.

The group’s gardens are entirely planted and tended by people living with HIV. With the aid of Kevin Borden, the Food Programs Coordinator for The Toronto People with AIDS Foundation and several dedicated volunteers, Dennis says they provide a stigma free outdoor environmental activity for clients to assist in giving back, while having fun doing it. “It gives clients a sense of ownership and belonging” he says “plus it’s healthy for their body and their mind.”  Says the group’s website, communal gardening like this “is a wonderful metaphor for growth, renewal and achieving optimal health.”

Talking with Denis inevitably returns to leadership issues.  He is a firm believer in GIPA (the Greater Involvement of People with HIV/AIDS) and MIPA (the Meaningful Involvement of people with HIV/AIDS. In 2008 Dennis took the Leadership Program  offered by the Ontario AIDS Network (OAN). There he says “I learned the five important steps and applied them to my own life - trust the process, inspire vision, enable others to act, model the way and encourage the heart.

Right now Denis is looking for volunteers, people living with HIV who live in Toronto and would like to help out with the gardens – preparing the soil planting, weeding, watering and ultimately, harvesting. Learn more about the community garden on their website here, (a website, incidentally designed by Newfiebear whom PositievLite.com recently profiled here. )  You can also apply to be a volunteer here  or donate here.

"I wish there were more therapeutic programs like this offered to make a good impact on other clients" says Newfiebear

A busy man at this time of year, Dennis is also involved in an event coming up in May called  Let’s Get Growing Event, the first of three events organized by Toronto Community Housing and Partners, showing housing tenants that gardening it isn’t hard to do with the use of containers and so on.   It’s on May 9th, 2013 at Gordon Ridge (Danforth Rd and Midland).

Dennis’s enthusiasm for gardening is infectiousness.  Just talking to him makes you want to grab a spade or a watering can. And now that spring is coming, after a very long winter here in southern Ontario, you could certainly do a lot worse! So don’t be a couch potato. Come out and plant some instead.

Question:What does your body and the New York City sewer system have in common?

A) Lots of rats running around the place living the good life.

B) Chewing gum, candy wrappers and all the stuff from storm drains strewn all over.

C) Bacteria, bacteria and more bacteria.

D) Zombies plotting their strategy take over the land of the living

Unless you are unusual, worry not about the zombies folks, the correct answer is bacteria and lots of it.  No don’t step away from the computer and drink some toilet bowl cleaner, this is good news.

Your body is host to billions and billions of bacteria, what doctors call intestinal flora. As the Definitive Guide to Alternative Medicine  poetically puts it, think about your body as a rainforest, (minus the parrots and monkeys, let's hope) a delicate ecosystem where these kinds of bacteria live and thrive in magical balance.  

TAKE CARE WHEN TAKING ANTIBIOTICS

Magical, that is, until the presence of external forces throws the bacterial balance off kilter. Food poisoning will tip the bacterial apple cart but the most common threat to this gentle ecosystem  are antibiotics, though steroids and oral contraceptives also do their damage to those good bacteria too.

Now don't get me wrong. Antibiotics represent a miracle in health  care. Many infections, diseasesand illnesses (at least for those of us in developed nations) no longer pose the mortal danger of years past because of them.

Yet overuse of antibiotics has created a situation where mutant viruses resist antibiotic treatment, and even relatively simple ailments require antibiotic treatment thousands of times stronger than was needed 30 or 40 years ago. So if your doctor writes antibiotic prescriptions faster than Manhattan meter maids write parking tickets, ask questions.  

PROBIOTICS ARE A GUT'S BEST FRIEND

While some of my friends consider me a paranoid pill popper I take probiotics daily. Probiotic supplements contain a variety of several of the most common and healthy bacteria in your gut and support your good old and sometimes overworked immune system. While many like myself believe supplements are the best way to replenish the intestinal flora and keep it healthy, yogurt and other fermented foods are also beneficial.

If you’re not going to take a supplement as part of your daily regimen when antibiotics are necessary make sure to take a probiotic supplement.  Be sure to read the directions on the label as many brands are best taken on an empty stomach to allow those healthy bugs the chance to reach your gut without stomach acids killing them off en route to their final destination in your GI tract.

As mentioned, cultured yogurt is also a great way to keep the bad guys from taking over the intestinal neighborhood. But some of the best known brands, like Activia, are loaded with sugar and far more expensive than many natural brands found in health food stores and the natural section of your supermarket. 

BALANCING ACT

When antibiotics or other factors disturb the intestinal bacteria an unhealthy balance is created allowing opportunistic bacteria and yeasts – the bad guys in the jungle – to take over the proverbial rainforest and flourish while the good bacteria disappears. 

This problem affects both men and women but the most commonly understood form of it is vaginal yeast infections. In some HIV-positive individuals thrush, an overgrowth of yeast in the mouth, is also found. 

In addition to prescription and over the counter antifungals there are a wide variety of herbal and homeopathic remedies available too.  Many herabl products contain combinations of garlic, pau d’arco (a Brazilian herb), black walnut and other immune supporting nutrients.  Homeopathic formulae are available in oral and topical forms as are all-natural suppositories for yeast infections.

Of course diet can upset the bacterial balance too. Eating too many simple carbohydrates, lots of sugar and fermented foods like beer and yeast-risen breads can exacerbate imbalances.

Of course anyone reading this doesn’t need someone wagging their online finger like an overbearing Mom, but don’t forget that eating whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables will support your body’s ability to deal with all kinds of stress (perhaps with the exception of online dating) immunological and otherwise.  

And what the heck, since I’m acting like your mother, don’t forget that regular supplementation with a good multiple vitamin, vitamins C and other nutrients can keep your body strong even during those times when the bad guys are running amok in the jungle.

Check out nutritionist Lark Lands' website for more information on why supplementation is especially important for people with HIV.  As she notes both HIV infection and the impact of long-term treatment create a variety of nutrient deficiencies. Supplementation can in Lands' view, increase the body’s immune response, improve the efficacy of RX treatment and minimize the side-effects of these drugs. 

The above article is not intended as a substitute for medical advice and is for informational purposes only.  The author has provided web links as added resources for information but does not endorse products and/or services  found on these pages.   

Some of the writing in this column was first published by this author in the now defunct website Fidget.com.

“Gay and bisexual men have a higher prevalence than heterosexual men [toward eating disorders],” writes Dr. Kathryn Zerbe, an expert on eating disorders and professor at the Oregon Health and Science University, in the New York Times’ Consults health blog.  Going further, Zerbe explains, “Gay men do appear to have more eating disorders than straight men, [but] these men do not necessarily want to be feminine.  Nor do they seem to have trouble with their masculine role, as they define it.  They do, however, desire to be attractive to potential partners and believe that being a particular weight and shape is appealing.”  Nothing that Zerbe talks about or writes about here is surprising in the least.  Rather, what seems most surprising is that we as gay men tend to play into our own insecurities and suffer thanks to our own peer-enforced obsession with fat. 

Growing up fat was an interesting experience, particularly as a gay boy.  I remember my mother and I going to JCPenney’s husky department, nervously going through the jeans with the wider legs and crotch, and having to suffer the indignity of my mother forcing two fingers into the waistband of my chosen jeans prior to purchase, ensuring that I “had enough room, dear,” and that my particular affinity for potato chips wouldn’t mean more expense on part of my parents for a bigger size in just a couple of weeks.  Moreover, I remember being taunted repeatedly for having a “fat ass,” of crying often by myself as a young man wishing people would like, and of the counterproductive, and obviously clumsy, criticisms of my well-meaning father to “go out and get some fresh air.”  In reality, my father was trying to tell me to make healthier choices to be like the other boys, but, as life would have it, I was not like the other boys in a good many ways.  These ways included throwing a baseball poorly, disliking the outdoors, and, of course, liking to kiss other boys.

At my fattest (right) , I was 317 pounds. Since this photograph was taken, I gradually lost 142 pounds and have maintained my healthier weight in spite of my personal discomfort and anxiety surrounding food.  Because of my lingering anxiety, I still feel the need to say explicitly that I no longer look this way.

At my largest, I was 317 pounds.  Years of drinking beer and eating chicken wings, Chinese food, tacos, quesadillas, Whoppers, and french fries ballooned my already large 42 inch waist to a seam bursting 52 inch waist in 2007.  On a seeming routine basis, I would starve myself, lose weight rapidly, and gain even more back.  Only later did I begin reading more mainstream articles about the defeatist strategy that is fad dieting, but it did not matter even then; starving myself made me feel better about myself.  Frankly, it gave me a sense of control over the fact that I could not control whether or not people liked me, whether or not other gay boys found me attractive, whether or not I could take my clothes off and not be utterly disgusted by the body in the mirror.  My experience, however, is really quite common in the LGBT community, as I learned through speaking with someone I’ll call “Bill.”

“I have struggled with my weight since I was thirty years old,” Bill tells me.  Bill began to gain weight after his twenties and started to notice more mass whenever he looked at himself in the mirror.  “As a gay man, I don’t think it has impacted me per se, but I do want to be a twink-like guy.  I think I look at myself as I was when I was young and very skinny,” he says when I ask him about his motivation to starve himself, binge, and, inevitably, purge and force himself to throw up the food he just ate.

“I think that I just want to be like others that are skinny.  With my bulimia, I have bad tooth enamel, and I’ve started to lose teeth…I feel like I am so fat always and that people don’t like me because I am not attractive to begin with and being fat doesn’t help,” Bill seems to accept as fact, incorrectly, that he is by default unattractive and so being fat just compounds the issue.  In reality, Bill is a perfectly attractive, professional gay man.  In his head, however, he is disgusting.

“The worst part of this is that it’s all in my head.  I have a great sex life.  I have no problem getting guys,” he concedes.  At this point, I hear my own life being echoed back to me.  After all, I’ve never been for want of a sexual partner.  In fact, I’ve oftentimes said that, as a white guy with a fat ass, I’m the answer to the question posed by the existence of gay black guys.  Notwithstanding this amusing, and in practice entirely accurate, fact, I still feel exactly like Bill does.  And, this dissonance, of having a fulfilling sex life but still feeling disgusting and unlovable, is something I experience on a woefully regular basis.  Sometimes, I have declined invitations because I just ate as much as I could find and, now as an adult, I refuse to succumb to the purge component I developed in high school and practiced throughout my teenage years.  And, rather than go out feeling fat and bloated, I ‘d rather lay in bed, watch television, and go to sleep, depressed and alone.

“The other worst part of having all this bother me so much and making it into such a big deal is that I’m six feet tall and 205 pounds,” Bill seems to try to talk himself into a more rational perception, but he fails with his follow-up, “I want to be 165 pounds.”

But, this isn’t entirely Bill’s fault.  And, my issues aren’t entirely my fault, either.  As gay men, we obsess about our weight.  We regularly delight in a friend’s weight loss, telling him that he looks fantastic.  Yet, we don’t take our compliments to their logical implication:  if a man losing twenty pounds looks fantastic now, then he did not, at one time twenty pounds heavier, look fantastic.  So, as a community, we tend to be putting the loss of fat on a pedestal while demonizing the accumulation of fat, regardless of the reason.  For instance, upon starting HIV medications, I gained twenty pounds rapidly to stand at five ten and 190 pounds currently because my body no longer had to fight so hard against HIV.  But, I am currently experiencing anxiety about attending an HIV+ men’s social event this weekend because I feel, frankly, disgusting.  And, I’ve even put myself on an inevitably meaningless diet just to tighten out my waist.

Why do we experience such anxiety, such self-loathing?  Well, we make comments to each other complimenting getting skinny, and we also make bitchy comments to each other about another’s weight.  “Girrrrrl, did you see how FAT she’s gotten?” is a typical refrain in any gay bar.  And, the biggest secret that any fat person or formerly fat person doesn’t want to tell you is that we fear this almost more than anything in reference to ourselves.  In fact, no matter how professional, no matter how successful, no matter how compassionate, sexy, or well-put-together we become as men, we can be utterly and emotionally destroyed by one insult. 

And, no matter how many times we claim that being fat is okay (it’s not, both from a standard-level-of-social attractiveness standpoint or a health standpoint), we know deep down that we want to be skinny.  And, in Bill’s case and in my case, we’ve engaged in unhealthy activities in the pursuit of attractiveness.  For me, after years and years of work toward self acceptance, figuring out what worked, and gradually accepting that I’ll never be truly thin, I’ve been able to be a healthy 165-185 pounds for several years now, and this weight depends on the season, amount of acceptable layers and thus my vigilance against carbohydrate indulgence.  Notwithstanding the past few years where I’ve been able to stay at approximately the same weight for the longest period in my life, I still cautiously approach every meal, every snack, and every craving with the memory of the JCPenney’s husky department.  It seems that, even as men, we behave, privately, as little boys just hoping we’re going to be asked to join a neighborhood game of dodgeball.

And, you know what happens to the fat kid in dodgeball.

This article first appeared on Josh’s own blog here.  

Contacts: twitter @jawshkruger Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. www.joshkruger.com

Why are there so many people who have eaten one single bad vegetarian meal made with tofu, and from that moment onconcluded "I hate tofu," or "vegetarian food sucks?" Doesn't matter if it was their mother's hippie boyfriend that cooked the meal back in 1979, or some other soul who can't boil water. The imprint seems to last forver.

Hell, I have even heard some counter-culture progressives that view tofu with such passionate, irrational disdain that their culinary xenophobia would make those fascistsof the 1930’s and 40’s proud.

Yet if these same people were served a lousy meal of spaghetti and meatballs would they conclude that spaghetti and meatballs suck, give up Italian food forever and gasp in digust anytime they saw someone eating a plate of pasta?  OF COURSE NOT.

Instead they’d say something like "boy oh boy, that restaurant serves crap that would makes my high school cafeteria food taste good," or "man, I'm glad my Mom cooked better than that otherwise my growth would have been stunted from eating nothing but Cheerios.”

Time For a Heart to Heart Talk About Tofu

So if you are one of these stubborn mules BUT ready to throw off the shackles of culinary prejudice, welcome aboard.  Soyfoods offer a huge range of benefits for anyone with or without HIV. 

And as more and more long-term survivors of HIV infection face increasing rates of cardiac disease, osteoporosis and other ailments once limited to geriatric populations the benefits of adding soy to the diet are incremenatally greater

If you’re not wure where to start you can try those so-called meat substitutes—tofu dogs, tofu burgers, tofu deli meats—or seasoned tofu products that don’t look like meat but are easy to use right out of the container, mixed into a casserole or added to a stir fry. 

I Came I Saw I Conquered My Fear of Tofu

Lest you think my taste buds have been softened by years as a vegetarian, I'm a committed carnivore.  I love a juicy steak, medium rare, make an amazing leg of lamb,  and every time I go to Katz' Deli in New York City I eat a knockwurst along with a couple hot dogs and at least half a pastrami sandwich.  If the other half doesn’t get eaten I take it to go.  

Yet I’m a flexitarian too and have been eating and occasionally cooking with tofu over the years.  Once upon a time, if I didn't get the stiry fry quite right I’d be tempted to toss ketchup on those white cubes of tofu.  Nowadays my results are suprisingly good. 

If you know your way around that room in your home that has a stove and a refrigerator, read on and turn your tofu terror into a joyful psalm for the soybean.

This recipe below will alter your relationship with tofu.  And if you fall in love with a vegan it will be an invaluable tool in making the romance rock.  It’s from my friend Warren Jones, a great guy, a dedicated vegan and one hell of a cook! All that being said, I still had my doubts when he told me about his tofu ricotta and how to make a vegan or vegetarian lasagna. Tofu over the cheesy, real deal?

Well, after making one single lasagna with Warren's magical dairy free tofu ricotta not one, not two, but three happy diners asked me, "What did you put in the ricotta?"

Warren's Famous Tofu Ricotta

Ingredients:

One pound firm tofu

5-6 tablespoons olive oil

1/3 cup pine nuts

1/2 bunch fresh basil

4-5 cloves fresh garlic

salt to taste

The amount of tofu needed will depend upon the size of the lasagna. Use the above proportions and make as much as you like. For best results, try to achieve a consistency similar to ricotta, so add the oil slowly and increase or decrease the amount as needed.

Enjoy!

Sometimes, simply making croissants to showcase one’s kitchen artistry just isn’t enough.  For such moments, I strongly encourage making a croissant chocolate bread pudding -- or a chocolate croissant chocolate bread pudding if you have day-old chocolate goodies around.  The rich velvety layers will satisfy lovers of sweet or savory desserts, and the addition of a tablespoon of cocoa nibs or a handful of chopped nuts or chocolate chips (or chocolate-covered coffee beans....shudder!) quickly adds your own personal spin to this delight. 

As with handling puff pastry, the thought of pouring warm cream into eggs can unnerve some who have never accomplished this feat before, but taking a slow and steady approach as described here will prevent cooking the eggs prematurely.

Ingredients

croissants, preferably a day or two old, enough to yield about 3.5 cups

500ml half-and-half

500ml  heavy cream

Pinch salt

125g semisweet chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate

6 eggs

225g (1 cup) sugar

Directions 

Cut the croissants into 2.5cm cubes and pile them evenly and loosely into an ovenproof baking dish that can fit comfortably into a roasting pan 

Heat the half-and-half, cream, and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally to make sure the mixture doesn't burn or stick to the bottom of the pan. When the mixture gets to a high simmer (steam rising, with some tiny bubbles, but do not let it boil), turn off the heat. Add the chocolate carefully and whisk until melted.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together, then continue to whisk while slowly (100ml at a time) adding the hot chocolate-cream mixture. Ladle the mixture over the croissant pieces and gently toss.  Allow to sit and soak at least 15 minutes, or let cool and store covered in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. If not baking after 15 minutes, fold the mixture periodically and again before baking to promote an even soak.

To bake, heat the oven to 350F and place paper towels in the bottom of a 5cm deep (or more) roasting pan able to hold the baking dish. Place the dish of bread pudding on the paper towels in the roasting pan and pour very hot water into the roasting pan to about a 2.5cm deep around the dish. Bake uncovered until set, about 40 to 45 minutes. The surface should look hard but not burned.

Serve warm, though people will still devour it cold.